70 Virginis

THE PLANET

The circle shows the location of the class G star 70 Virginis (in
the constellation Virgo). The massive
planet, at least 7.4 times more massive than Jupiter, orbits the
star every 117 days, or 0.31 year, at a distance of 0.48
Astronomical Units from the star (72 million kilometers, 40 million
miles, or 1.24 times the distance of Mercury from the Sun). The
orbit is quite eccentric, the planet moving between 0.3 AU and 0.7
astronomical units, which is surprising given the closeness of the
two.

THE STAR

70 Virginis is an easily seen mid-fifth magnitude (4.98) G2.5
ordinary dwarf 59 light years away with a surface temperature of
5400 Kelvin, just a bit cooler than the Sun.
However, its luminosity of about three times solar suggests a mass
some 10-20 percent greater than solar. The class is uncertain; the
star is sometimes listed as G4 or G5, consistent with the cooler
temperature.